The Beatles: Rock Band
Encyclopedia
The Beatles: Rock Band is a 2009 music video game
developed by Harmonix Music Systems
, published by MTV Games
, and distributed by Electronic Arts
. It is the third major console
release in the Rock Band
music video game series, in which players can simulate the playing of rock music
by using controllers
shaped like musical instruments. The Beatles: Rock Band is the first band-centric game in the series, and it is centered on the popular English rock group The Beatles
. The game had proved to be a huge sales success with multi millions of units sold in its first year. The game features virtual portrayals of the four band members performing the songs throughout the band's history, including depictions of some of their famous live performances, as well as a number of "dreamscape" sequences for songs from the Abbey Road Studios
recording sessions during the group's studio years. The game's soundtrack consists of 45 Beatles songs; additional songs and albums by The Beatles were made available for the game as downloadable content
.
The game was released internationally on 9 September 2009, coinciding with the release of new, remastered compact disc versions of The Beatles albums
. It incorporates many of the gameplay features of the Rock Band series; however, it is not an expansion pack
for the Rock Band series and content for it and other Rock Band titles is not cross-compatible. Harmonix co-founder Alex Rigopulos
described the game as "... a new, full game title production built from the ground up." Gameplay mechanics differ slightly from previous Rock Band games, including the addition of a three-part vocal harmony
system.
The game was developed with the blessing and critical input of Apple Corps
, including former Beatles members Sir Paul McCartney
and Ringo Starr
, who both made public appearances supporting the game. George Harrison
's son Dhani
helped to bridge discussion between Harmonix and Apple Corps, while Giles Martin
, son of The Beatles' music producer George Martin
, ensured high-fidelity versions of The Beatles' songs would be available.
The Beatles: Rock Band was well-received by the press, both as a genuine means of experiencing the music and history of The Beatles and as a standalone music video game. Although the game's sales were considered respectable, with more than half a million units sold during its first month of release in the United States, analysts had projected larger sales volumes and attributed the lower sales to waning interest in the rhythm game genre and the video game industry recovery from the late-2000s recession.
by providing up to six players with the ability to play three different controllers modeled after music instruments (a guitar
controller for lead guitar
and bass guitar
gameplay, a drum
controller and up to three microphone
s for vocals). Players simulate the performance of rock music by using their controllers to play scrolling on-screen notes. For lead and bass guitar, this is accomplished by holding down colored buttons mimicking guitar fret
s and pushing the controller's strum bar; for drums, this requires striking the matching colored drumhead, or stepping on the pedal to simulate playing bass drum notes. A "Lefty" mode allows left-handed people to play, by switching which colour the beats are given. When singing vocals, the player must sing in relative pitch
to the original vocals. A pitch indicator displays the singer's accuracy relative to the original pitch. For songs with multi-part vocals, players need only to stay in tone with the lead singer to score points and keep their performance meter up, but players earn additional scoring bonuses when they successfully complete phrases in harmony.
As in previous Rock Band games, successfully hitting the proper notes in sequence earns points for each player and boosts their "performance meter". Each separate instrument is given a level, defined by their instrument icon, and the average level is also displayed. If a player fails to match the notes, their performance meter drops. If the meter empties, that player is forced to drop out of play, which in turn causes the band's overall performance to drop. Any player to drop out can be "saved" if another player activates "Beatlemania" (referred to as "Overdrive" in other Rock Band titles), which is collected by successfully completing specially marked phrases. These phrases appear in white, and if the phrase is completed, the energy bar, displayed at the bottom of every track, fills by one quarter. Beatlemania can also be used to temporarily increase the amount of points the band earns. Activating Beatlemania is specific to each "instrument". For guitar, the controller must be temporarily shifted to an upright position; for drums, a special "cymbal" (Green, or red for "Lefty" mode) is hit; and for vocals, a noise must be registered by the microphone when prompted.
Some alterations to the Rock Band formula were made to preserve the sound of The Beatles' music. Audio cues that provide feedback on how well the band is doing, typically through the crowd cheering, singing along with the lyrics, or booing if the band is failing, are not included. The virtual band members are not booed off the stage if a player fails a song. Rather, the game simply cuts to a "song failed" menu with the option to try again. The song is restarted from the beginning. Variations on Overdrive/Beatlemania activation include the removal of player-controlled audio effects. While guitar players can use the controller's whammy bar on sustained marked note to collect more Beatlemania, this does not alter the sound of the note. There are also no freestyle drum fills
in the songs for activating Beatlemania; instead the player continues to perform the correct note sequence before being presented with a note to activate Beatlemania.
Throughout the song, players receive points for every note hit, and this is totalled up and displayed at the end of the song, along with a percentage of how many notes they hit, and a rating: 1 to 5 stars. If the score is close to perfect, normally requiring at least 98% of the notes, the rating is five 'gold' stars, instead of the normal bronze. The score is saved and shown alongside the song in the select screen; over time, as the song is replayed, it shows only the highest score.
Four new instrument peripherals modeled after those used by The Beatles members were introduced alongside the game: a Rickenbacker 325
guitar, a Gretsch Duo Jet
guitar, a Höfner bass
and a Ludwig
drum set. These instrument controllers function similarly to the controllers designed for Rock Band 2, with most alterations being purely aesthetic. A "Limited Edition" bundle of the game includes one Höfner bass guitar controller, one Ludwig-branded drum controller, a microphone, a microphone stand and Beatles-themed postcards. A second, less expensive bundle configuration contains peripherals first introduced with the original Rock Band game; this bundle does not contain a mic stand or postcards. The game was also released as a SingStar bundle with two microphones, and finally as a standalone release. The Rickenbacker and Gretsch guitar peripherals are sold separately.
Up to six players can play any song in the game cooperatively via "Solo/Band Quickplay" mode. Two players can also play against one another in Rock Bands two competitive modes: "Tug of War", where two players perform alternating sections of songs to outdo the other's performance, and "Score Duel", where each player simultaneously plays the entirety of a song while trying to accumulate the highest score. Tug of War allows players to choose individual difficulty levels, while Score Duel requires that both players play at the same difficulty level. Both competitive modes require that players use the same type of instrument.
Several "Training" modes are available for The Beatles: Rock Band, including tutorials for both guitar/bass and drums. Practice modes are instrument-specific and allow players to practice entire songs or individual sections of songs. Guitar, bass, and drum practice modes allow players to slow the tempos of songs; vocal practice mode helps to emphasize the selected harmony portion of the vocals by adding a generated waveform
sound to the selected harmony line in tune with the lyrics. There are also two drum training modes called "Drum Lessons" and "Beatle Beats".
Before playing, a difficulty has to be selected: easy, medium, hard or expert. Expert is a match of the original notes; hard has some note-heavy drum rolls and other difficult or fast notes removed; medium takes away the orange notes (for guitar and bass) and anything else considered tricky. Easy is designed for new players, and gives an easy rhythm for those to settle into the game. However, there are too few notes for it to feel like they're playing the actual tune from the song. A "No Fail" mode has been carried over from Rock Band 2 and is accessible from the band members selection screen rather than from the game's main menu. This mode allows players to continue to play, even if their performance metre hits the bottom. In addition, No Fail mode is automatically enabled for any player who chooses the "Easy" difficulty.
, son of George Harrison
, at a luncheon sponsored by Robert Earl
during the 2006 Christmas holiday, shortly after MTV's acquisition of Harmonix. Dhani, having been familiar with the Guitar Hero
franchise and learning of the recent acquisition and plans for Rock Band
from Toffler, suggested a game based on The Beatles. Though both Dhani and Toffler considered the concept an unlikely possibility, their meeting nonetheless spurred Dhani into further discussions with Harmonix's president, Alex Rigopulos
. At the same time, Dhani helped to introduce the Rock Band concept to Apple Corps
, the music production company created by The Beatles, and its key shareholders Sir Paul McCartney
, Ringo Starr
and Yoko Ono
. Initial meetings were arranged with the shareholders using an early prototype of the game to garner their interest in the title. One stipulation that the Apple Corps shareholders required of Harmonix was that the game feature songs spanning the band's entire career. Harmonix subsequently created a more complete demonstration that used examples of music and artwork that they envisioned for the game. The five-song demo, which included an early build for "Here Comes the Sun
", was finished in February 2008. It was used to gain approval from McCartney, Starr, Ono and Olivia Harrison, effectively bringing them aboard the project as creative partners.
The Apple Corps shareholders considered The Beatles: Rock Band a new way to introduce the band's music to the public. They approved of the songs and venues that would appear in the game, and provided feedback on the artwork, character representations, and storyboards for animation sequences. McCartney and Starr fact-checked certain anecdotes relating to The Beatles while Ono and Harrison provided insight on their late husbands' performances and lyrics. At the developer's request, Ono visited the Harmonix offices late in development to provide critical feedback on several visual elements. In a Wired
article, MTV's senior vice president of the games division Paul DeGooyer was quoted saying "She gave the designers hell". DeGooyer clarified the statement soon after the article had been published, asserting that the visit was "a high point of the two-year development process" and "has been mischaracterized by some in the press."
Though The Beatles: Rock Band aims to present a visual and musical history of The Beatles, the game does not attempt to replicate periods of turmoil between the band members. Rather, it presents a "fantasy version" of The Beatles to better serve the entertainment purposes of the video game. For example, Ringo Starr was estranged from the rest of the band during periods of recording for The Beatles
(commonly referred to as The White Album). Thus, he did not perform on certain songs, such as "Back in the U.S.S.R.". In the game, however, the Ringo Starr character plays drums during the animated performance of the song.
equipment, needed to be reworked into a multitrack format that is essential in providing feedback to players. Each of the game's four instrument parts need to have their own "stems"—for example, when a player misplays a note from the guitar track, the guitar audio for the song will be temporarily quieted, leaving the other instruments' audio unaffected. Such isolated tracks were not available through the new 2009 remasters, so the team started with the original master recording
s.
The development team was able to bring Giles Martin
aboard as the game's music producer. Martin had recently completed co-production on the 2006 Love
project with his father George Martin
and was already familiar with The Beatles catalogue. Through that project, Martin created digital back-up copies of all the original tapes, which aided his work on The Beatles: Rock Band. Using audio forensics software, Martin and his team were able to extract the audio of individual instruments by isolating sounds at certain frequencies with digital filters, thus assuring multitrack capabilities for The Beatles' master recordings. This process, conducted at Abbey Road Studio
52 with the help of Paul Hicks and other Abbey Road recording engineers, reportedly took months to complete.
During the game's development, Harmonix only used low-fidelity versions of the remasters, which were sufficient for programming and note charting; Apple Corps feared that the leak of any high-fidelity remastered track from Abbey Road studios would lead to the unauthorized use of samples of The Beatles' music in remixes. High-fidelity versions of the songs were not implemented until the final publishing of the game. Harmonix performed very little additional remixing upon receipt of these remasters; in some cases, three different guitar parts—lead, solo, and rhythm—were brought into a single cohesive guitar part, slightly raising the volume of the specific guitar track that was used in note tracking to make it easier for the player to follow in the game. The ability for up to three players to sing vocal harmonies, a feature not present in previous Rock Band games, was designed and implemented as an optional feature so as not to be overwhelming to players.
While live recordings of songs, such as "Paperback Writer" at the Budokan
, were available, Martin believed some of these renditions were sloppy and would not be enjoyable to play. Instead, he took the studio versions and added audio effects from the live performances to create a "live concert" ambiance. In several instances, the team also opted to slightly restructure the endings to certain songs, particularly those that fade out
. Differences in editing between the album versions and in-game versions of songs continued with the release of downloadable content
, notably the inclusion of a once-missing final chord at the end of the Abbey Road closer "Her Majesty
".
Dhani Harrison has stated the game will include "stuff that has never been heard, never been released." Some of the new material includes band chatter and instrument tunes taken from recorded performances. This audio plays during the loading screens or bookends certain songs. Within the Abbey Road studio, Martin recreated some of the incidental sound, played through speakers but capturing the acoustics of the studio room. In one instance, for example, this process involved recording four people miming the act of drinking tea. The entirety of the game's credits are also made up of this band chatter and studio takes.
In coordination with the art team, sound programmers attempted to realistically map the game's note tracks relative to the real performances by The Beatles. For guitar parts, colored notes were selected not necessarily to match tonally with the music, but to replicate the movement and finger positioning used by the original performers. These were then matched against ten different strumming animations to be used for the virtual depictions of the guitarists. The "Expert" difficulty drum tracks attempt to match every single drum beat that is performed in a song, including some peculiar rhythms brought about by Starr's ambidextrous
drumming habits. Vocals were slowed down and broken into phonetic segments, allowing the art team to determine the appropriate facial movement for the virtual characters to go along with the lyrics.
noted that the art team's earliest character designs were met with "brutal" responses from Apple, but that this feedback was essential in developing the visual styles of the band. In addition to Apple Corps' material, Harmonix designers watched the eight-part The Beatles Anthology
on a weekly basis for further reference on the band. These materials were meticulously reviewed to replicate the outfits that The Beatles wore for each of their concerts, as well as the instruments they used for recordings and live performances.
Although McCartney had hoped technology would allow the virtual band members to appear in hyper-realistic detail, Harmonix opted to start with more exaggerated, cartoon-like designs, gradually scaling them back to appear more realistic. Animation for The Beatles characters was aided by motion capture
provided by Beatles tribute bands. Dhani Harrison also assisted with modeling for character animation in the game.
The team designed venues that represented parts of The Beatles' history in order to create an atmosphere of authenticity. For example, the set of The Ed Sullivan Show
was recreated from photographs and videos, including a rare color photograph in Apple's collection that showed the yellow tint used to enhance the video as shown on black-and-white television sets. The Cavern Club
, Shea Stadium
, Budokan
, Abbey Road Studios
and the rooftop of the Apple Corps Headquarters also appear as venues in the game. Fashions of the 1960s were researched to properly apply them to the various virtual crowds at these locations.
Twenty of the game's on-disc songs are associated with "dreamscape" sequences in conjunction with the Abbey Road venue, representing the exclusively studio-based nature of the band
in their later years. Animation sequences for songs linked with dreamscapes feature abstract or representative scenery. For example, the sequence for "Octopus's Garden
" takes place in an underwater reef, while the sequence for "I Am the Walrus
" is reminiscent of the band's psychedelic performance of the song in the 1967 film Magical Mystery Tour
. The concept of dreamscapes evolved from brainstorming sessions between Harmonix and Apple Corps.; as Rock Band was a game that celebrated the performance of music, simply portraying The Beatles performing in the Abbey Road studio was not enough, and the dreamscape sequences provided a way to surpass that. While the art team used existing materials as reference, the Apple Corps. shareholders encouraged the team to interpret the songs in new ways. For inspiration, Harmonix looked to Cirque du Soleil
's approach in interpreting The Beatles catalogue for the Love
stage show. Storyboard
s for these animated sequences were created using both hand-drawn and 2D computer-generated art. In some cases, the computer-generated elements used in storyboarding were kept as elements in the final venue, such as computer-generated blades of grass in the "Here Comes the Sun" sequence.
The game includes heavily stylized opening and ending cinematics produced in part by Pete Candeland of Passion Pictures
, with help from animator Robert Valley and background visuals from Alberto Mielgo. Candeland, who is known for his work animating Gorillaz
videos, also produced the opening cinematics for both the original Rock Band and Rock Band 2. Within two and a half minutes, the opening cinematic provides a brief representative history of the band interspersed with numerous references to songs by The Beatles, followed by more metaphorical scenes reflecting their studio albums. Prior to each of the chapters in the game's Story mode, the game presents short introductory animations; these animations were prepared by graphic design studio MK12
, who had previously worked on the opening cinematics for movies such as Stranger than Fiction and Quantum of Solace.
The Beatles: Rock Band was first revealed on 30 October 2008 when Harmonix, MTV Games, and Viacom
announced an exclusive agreement with Apple Corps, Ltd.
to produce the standalone title. Prior to this announcement, industry rumours reported that both Harmonix/MTV Games and Activision
were vying for The Beatles songs, the latter for the Guitar Hero
franchise. The agreement was the result of 17 months of discussions. John Drake, PR spokesperson for Harmonix, stated that Apple Corps "respected and appreciated what Harmonix does creatively for rhythm games" as part of the success of the deal. Eversheds
, the legal firm working for Apple Corps. for both The Beatles: Rock Band and the upcoming remake of Yellow Submarine by Disney
, stated that it took six months to complete the complex agreements and paperwork over the copyrights, trademarks, and publishing issues. Viacom's deal with The Beatles' property owners includes royalties
with a guaranteed minimum of $
10 million and upwards of $40 million based on initial sales projections, an amount that chairman Martin Bendier of Sony/ATV Publishing has stated to be "not even comparable to anything that has been done before". The licensing of The Beatles' work for the game was considered a critical step in the later negotiations and availability of the band's songs on iTunes about a year after the game's release. A further complication arose about a year after the game's release; Chrysalis Group
legally challenged EMI over a previous 1965 agreement whereby EMI would pay Chrysalis up to 1.5% of royalties on sales of The Beatles' records, and claimed that they are owned ₤500,000 for the two million units sold of The Beatles: Rock Band. EMI asserts that the video game format would not be covered under the concept of a "record" from the 1965 agreement.
The game was released internationally on 9 September 2009. The game's release was planned to coincide with the release of the new, remastered CD versions of The Beatles albums. Footage from The Beatles: Rock Band was revealed for the first time on 18 April 2009, during Paul McCartney's performance at the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival
. McCartney continued to utilize gameplay footage during his concert performances while touring during the months prior to the game's release. The game was formally showcased on 1 June 2009 at E3 2009
. Presented by Harmonix at the beginning of the Microsoft
press conference, Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr briefly took the stage to discuss the games. Yoko Ono and Olivia Harrison also made a brief appearance. The game's E3 demo booth was modeled as a recreation of Abbey Road Studios.
The game's official website was revealed early in 2009, showing only images of the Abbey Road studios and the game's release date. Over time, images of The Beatles' favored instruments appeared in the studio as their game peripheral replicas were announced. On 5 May 2009, the website was updated to include general information and promotional media. Customers who pre-ordered the game from selected vendors received an access code to view exclusive images and media on the site before it was eventually made public.
In August 2009, VH1 Classic aired music videos from the TV special Around The Beatles
(1964), Help!
(1965), and a music video of the "Birthday" gameplay footage, promoting the launch of The Beatles Rock Band online store. This store was also launched by several segments held on the home shopping channel
, QVC
, for the game, The Beatles' remastered albums, and other related products; several Harmonix employees were present to demonstrate the game.
A video advertisement for the game featuring the song "Come Together
" premiered on 28 August 2009. The spot features a live action recreation of the iconic Abbey Road album cover; as The Beatles cross the road, a crowd of people follow, some of whom are carrying the game's controllers. The advertisement was directed by Marcel Langenegger, who worked with Apple Corps and Giles Martin to build an Abbey Road set at a Hollywood studio, and to blend archival footage of The Beatles into the video. Body double
s, vetted by the Apple Corps shareholders, appear in some shots. On 8 September 2009, Dhani Harrison
appeared as a guest on The Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien
to promote the game. Harrison and O'Brien (along with Tonight Show web manager Aaron Bleyaert and The Tonight Show Band member Mark Pender) performed the song "Birthday" at the close of the show.
recorded during their 1962–1969 tenure with EMI Records
. With the exception of Magical Mystery Tour, track information is based on the United Kingdom-released versions of the albums. Six non-album singles and the mashup
track "Within You Without You
/Tomorrow Never Knows
" from the 2006 remix album
Love
have also been included. Selections of the soundtrack are under license from Sony/ATV Music Publishing Company. Although Michael Jackson
, who owned 50% of the publishing rights to The Beatles songs through Sony/ATV, died in June 2009, the sale of his estate did not affect the songs or the release schedule of The Beatles: Rock Band, according to Harmonix.
. The song "All You Need Is Love
" was first to appear as downloadable content, proceeds from which ($1.40 of the $2 song cost) are donated to Doctors Without Borders. The song was initially made available as an exclusive for Xbox 360 on the same day the game was released. Within two weeks of the game's release, "All You Need Is Love" was announced by Microsoft and MTV to be the fastest-selling downloadable song across any of the Rock Band platforms, with tens of thousands of downloads; The song had been downloaded more than 100,000 times by the end of September, and by February 2010, had generated over $200,000 for the charity. The song is now available for download on the Wii and PlayStation 3.
Full albums were also made available as downloadable content; the remaining songs from Abbey Road, Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band
, and Rubber Soul
have since been released on the consoles' respective store services. While there is potential for the entire Beatles catalogue to be made available, this will be unlikely, according to John Drake of Harmonix. Drake identified the costly development process as a potentially prohibitive factor: "Every time we do one song, it's not like Rock Band where we wait for the masters to come in and just author them ... its like, send people to Abbey Road, use the original tape, separate them out ... it costs thousands of dollars." Drake asserted that Harmonix would take sales of the currently announced albums into consideration before continuing development of downloadable content. Harmonix's Foster stated that solo acts from The Beatles' members will not be included as downloadable content for The Beatles: Rock Band though did not rule out these acts appearing in other Rock Band games. A three pack of songs from Paul McCartney's 2009 live album, Good Evening New York City
, was made available for the main Rock Band series and Lego Rock Band
on 5 January 2010, while Lennon's "Imagine
" is a part of the Rock Band 3
soundtrack, with the full Imagine
album arriving later as downloadable content in celebration of Lennon's 70th birthday. A pack featuring Paul McCartney's band Wings
was also released as DLC for Rock Band 3.
The respective downloadable content for The Beatles: Rock Band and other currently available Rock Band titles are not cross-compatible. Furthermore, the songs contained on The Beatles disc are not exportable to other games in the Rock Band series. Harmonix's Chris Foster cited the game's new vocal harmony feature as well as the unique song-specific dreamscape animations as reasons for the lack of exportability to other Rock Band games. John Drake stated that the developer had a responsibility to treat The Beatles' songs as "iconic", and keep its music separated from other songs.
suggested that the game would spark a new wave of Beatlemania
, while Seth Schiesel of The New York Times
called it "nothing less than a cultural watershed". Some critics hailed the title as landmark of the music game genre; Randy Lewis of the Los Angeles Times
described the game as a "quantum leap forward for the music video game", while Johnny Minkley of Eurogamer
called it "the new standard by which all band-specific game experiences will be judged".
Described as an "interactive Beatles experience", the game was considered to bring players closer to the band through both technical and emotional means. By playing each song's respective note chart, players were said to have a better appreciation for the structure and complexity of the compositions and performances by The Beatles. Emotionally, critics commented on the sentimental values of the game's career mode, recalling the history of the band. Critics were mostly positive concerning the visual and aural elements of the game; G4
's Abbie Heppe considered it a preferable package to the newly remastered albums, citing song-specific animations as a strong feature. The dreamscape sequences in particular were likened to live performances, praised as "dazzling" and "evocative". However, Schiesel remarked that due to the players' concentration on the note tracks, the animations "serve mostly to entertain onlookers rather than the players themselves". Heppe observed that the color saturation of the background elements as well as the "Beatlemania" visual effects can sometimes contrast poorly with the scrolling notes, making it difficult to play. After the game's release, Harmonix lead designer Chris Foster acknowledged that the visuals can be "too overwhelming for [some players] at moments". The implementation of three-part harmonies, expressed by some to be the most significant addition to the series, was well-received.
Critics primarily found fault with the game's length, as the bulk of the game's content can be completed in only a few hours. Will Tuttle of GameSpy
questioned whether Harmonix limited the number of songs on release knowing that there would be a market for the game's downloadable content in the near future. The low number of songs, along with the new themed instrument controllers, were found to make the game an expensive proposition for those new to rhythm games. Due to the limited selection of songs on the disc, some critics questioned the specific inclusion of certain songs or the exclusion of more popular songs. Furthermore, critics claimed that the game's complete dedication to The Beatles, without the option for cross-compatibility with Rock Band or vice versa, can potentially lead to tedious play sessions with minimal variety, hampering the social nature of the game. Justin Haywald of 1UP.com
considered that in attaching the Rock Band name to the game's title, there was a certain expectation on an expandable library of songs and interoperability with previous Rock Band titles, which The Beatles: Rock Band failed to meet. Some players coming from previous versions of Rock Band would consider the songs in The Beatles: Rock Band to lack technical challenge. However, the less difficult note tracks were seen to be a welcoming benefit for newcomers to the series as well as those attempting to sing along with the harmony portions of the game. For purist fans, some critics noted that the game purposely avoids certain aspects of The Beatles' history; former band members such as Pete Best
or collaborators such as Billy Preston
or Eric Clapton
are never seen during gameplay. Concerning supplemental content, Hilary Goldstein of IGN
felt the extra features could have been more substantial, especially in comparison to the additional material that accompanies the remastered CDs.
PC World
listed The Beatles: Rock Band as their ninth Best Product of 2009. The game won for 'Best Music Game' on the Spike Video Game Awards 2009. The game won the "Family Game of the Year" and was nominated for the "Outstanding Achievement in Soundtrack" 13th Annual Interactive Achievement Awards from the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences
.
The game was also nominated for the "Best Audio" Game Developers Choice Award
. The game's official website, published by Harmonix, won the "Games-Related" category for the 14th Annual Webby Awards
. In 2010, the game was included as one of the titles in the book 1001 Video Games You Must Play Before You Die
.
The Beatles: Rock Band is currently being used as a finale for each performance of the 125th anniversary season of the Boston Pops Orchestra
; the orchestra leads the audience in a sing-along to several songs by the Beatles played by the orchestra but synchronized to the visuals from the game.
, GameSpy
, 1UP.com
, and X-Play
; the game was also nominated for Best Music or Rhythm game by the Game Critics Awards
and IGN
. The opening animation video, released at the same time as E3, was praised by the press. It has been described as "surreal" by both the Los Angeles Times
and Boing Boing
's Offworld blog. Frames Per Second
called it "simply stunning", and the Entertainment Weekly
blog PopWatch described it as "damned spiffy". The second half of the video, where traditional animation
gives way to a combination of computer-aided 2D and 3D scenery has been described as "a mashup of Peter Max
and the Unreal Engine
... chaperoned by the ghost of Salvador Dalí
" by the ECA
's GameCulture blog. The opening video was awarded the 2009 British Animation Award for "Best Commissioned Animation" and won a Silver Clio Award
in the field of "Television/Cinema/Digital Technique".
The Beatles: Rock Band was the fourth high-selling game across all platforms in its first week of release in the United Kingdom. According to the NPD Group
, The Beatles: Rock Band sold 254,000, 208,600, and 134,600 units across all offerings for the Xbox 360, Wii, and PlayStation 3 versions during September 2009, respectively in the United States, making the game the 5th, 10th, and 20th top sellers for the month, respectively; only Guitar Hero 5 for the Xbox 360 placed in the top 10 titles selling 210,800 units. Total sales across all platforms in the United States was 595,000 units with revenue between $59 and , and was the second highest revenue-generating game behind Halo 3: ODST driven by sales of the bundled units. Though MTV Games was pleased with the sales performance of the game, the sales numbers fell short of the projected values by industry analysts, attributing it to the slow recovery of the video game market from the late-2000s recession. As of December 2009, Harmonix has stated that the game has sold more than copies worldwide. NPD Group data through the end of 2009 reported North American sales of the game at 1.18 and . In considering the comparison of The Beatles: Rock Band sales in North America to the nearly units sold by Guitar Hero 5, the magazine Advertising Age
identified the ability of MTV Games and Harmonix to leverage the music of the Beatles and their other partners in novel and experimental methods among more traditional means. In an October 2010 interview Alex Rigopulos claimed that The Beatles: Rock Band sales were "respectable", having sold "well over three million units", though had not exceeded sales of other Rock Band games.
Music video game
A music video game, also commonly known as a music game, is a video game where the gameplay is meaningfully and often almost entirely oriented around the player's interactions with a musical score or individual songs...
developed by Harmonix Music Systems
Harmonix Music Systems
Harmonix Music Systems is an American video game development company based in Cambridge, Massachusetts in the United States...
, published by MTV Games
MTV
MTV, formerly an initialism of Music Television, is an American network based in New York City that launched on August 1, 1981. The original purpose of the channel was to play music videos guided by on-air hosts known as VJs....
, and distributed by Electronic Arts
Electronic Arts
Electronic Arts, Inc. is a major American developer, marketer, publisher and distributor of video games. Founded and incorporated on May 28, 1982 by Trip Hawkins, the company was a pioneer of the early home computer games industry and was notable for promoting the designers and programmers...
. It is the third major console
Video game console
A video game console is an interactive entertainment computer or customized computer system that produces a video display signal which can be used with a display device to display a video game...
release in the Rock Band
Rock Band
Rock Band is a music video game developed by Harmonix Music Systems, published by MTV Games and Electronic Arts. It is the first title in the Rock Band series. The PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 versions were released in the United States on November 20, 2007, while the PlayStation 2 version was...
music video game series, in which players can simulate the playing of rock music
Rock music
Rock music is a genre of popular music that developed during and after the 1960s, particularly in the United Kingdom and the United States. It has its roots in 1940s and 1950s rock and roll, itself heavily influenced by rhythm and blues and country music...
by using controllers
Game controller
A game controller is a device used with games or entertainment systems used to control a playable character or object, or otherwise provide input in a computer game. A controller is typically connected to a game console or computer by means of a wire, cord or nowadays, by means of wireless connection...
shaped like musical instruments. The Beatles: Rock Band is the first band-centric game in the series, and it is centered on the popular English rock group The Beatles
The Beatles
The Beatles were an English rock band, active throughout the 1960s and one of the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed acts in the history of popular music. Formed in Liverpool, by 1962 the group consisted of John Lennon , Paul McCartney , George Harrison and Ringo Starr...
. The game had proved to be a huge sales success with multi millions of units sold in its first year. The game features virtual portrayals of the four band members performing the songs throughout the band's history, including depictions of some of their famous live performances, as well as a number of "dreamscape" sequences for songs from the Abbey Road Studios
Abbey Road Studios
Abbey Road Studios is a recording studio located at 3 Abbey Road, St John's Wood, City of Westminster, London, England. It was established in November 1931 by the Gramophone Company, a predecessor of British music company EMI, its present owner...
recording sessions during the group's studio years. The game's soundtrack consists of 45 Beatles songs; additional songs and albums by The Beatles were made available for the game as downloadable content
Downloadable content
Downloadable content is official additional content for a video game distributed through the Internet. Downloadable content can be of several types, ranging from a single in-game outfit to an entirely new, extensive storyline, similarly to an expansion pack. As such, DLC may add new game modes,...
.
The game was released internationally on 9 September 2009, coinciding with the release of new, remastered compact disc versions of The Beatles albums
The Beatles discography
In their native United Kingdom during 1962–1970, The Beatles released 12 studio albums, 13 EPs, and 22 singles. However, the band's international discography is complicated, due to different versions of their albums sometimes being released in other countries, particularly during their early years...
. It incorporates many of the gameplay features of the Rock Band series; however, it is not an expansion pack
Expansion pack
An expansion pack, expansion set, or supplement is an addition to an existing role-playing game, tabletop game or video game. These add-ons usually add new game areas, weapons, objects, and/or an extended storyline to a complete and already released game...
for the Rock Band series and content for it and other Rock Band titles is not cross-compatible. Harmonix co-founder Alex Rigopulos
Alex Rigopulos
Alexander Peter "Alex" Rigopulos is the CEO of Harmonix Music Systems, a company he founded with Eran Egozy in 1995. Rigopulos personally cites Japanese game designers Masaya Matsuura, Tetsuya Mizuguchi, and Keita Takahashi as some artists that have inspired his work at Harmonix...
described the game as "... a new, full game title production built from the ground up." Gameplay mechanics differ slightly from previous Rock Band games, including the addition of a three-part vocal harmony
Harmony
In music, harmony is the use of simultaneous pitches , or chords. The study of harmony involves chords and their construction and chord progressions and the principles of connection that govern them. Harmony is often said to refer to the "vertical" aspect of music, as distinguished from melodic...
system.
The game was developed with the blessing and critical input of Apple Corps
Apple Corps
Apple Corps Ltd. is a multi-armed multimedia corporation founded in January 1968 by the members of The Beatles to replace their earlier company and to form a conglomerate. Its name is a pun. Its chief division is Apple Records, which was launched in the same year...
, including former Beatles members Sir Paul McCartney
Paul McCartney
Sir James Paul McCartney, MBE, Hon RAM, FRCM is an English musician, singer-songwriter and composer. Formerly of The Beatles and Wings , McCartney is listed in Guinness World Records as the "most successful musician and composer in popular music history", with 60 gold discs and sales of 100...
and Ringo Starr
Ringo Starr
Richard Starkey, MBE better known by his stage name Ringo Starr, is an English musician and actor who gained worldwide fame as the drummer for The Beatles. When the band formed in 1960, Starr was a member of another Liverpool band, Rory Storm and the Hurricanes. He became The Beatles' drummer in...
, who both made public appearances supporting the game. George Harrison
George Harrison
George Harrison, MBE was an English musician, guitarist, singer-songwriter, actor and film producer who achieved international fame as lead guitarist of The Beatles. Often referred to as "the quiet Beatle", Harrison became over time an admirer of Indian mysticism, and introduced it to the other...
's son Dhani
Dhani Harrison
Dhani Harrison is an English musician and the son of George Harrison of The Beatles and Olivia Harrison. Harrison debuted as a professional musician when completing his father's final album Brainwashed after George Harrison's death in November 2001...
helped to bridge discussion between Harmonix and Apple Corps, while Giles Martin
Giles Martin
Giles Martin is an English record producer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist. He is the son of Sir George Martin, famed producer of almost all of The Beatles' records.- Biography :...
, son of The Beatles' music producer George Martin
George Martin
Sir George Henry Martin CBE is an English record producer, arranger, composer and musician. He is sometimes referred to as "the Fifth Beatle"— a title that he often describes as "nonsense," but the fact remains that he served as producer on all but one of The Beatles' original albums...
, ensured high-fidelity versions of The Beatles' songs would be available.
The Beatles: Rock Band was well-received by the press, both as a genuine means of experiencing the music and history of The Beatles and as a standalone music video game. Although the game's sales were considered respectable, with more than half a million units sold during its first month of release in the United States, analysts had projected larger sales volumes and attributed the lower sales to waning interest in the rhythm game genre and the video game industry recovery from the late-2000s recession.
Gameplay
The Beatles: Rock Band allows players to perform simulated rock musicRock music
Rock music is a genre of popular music that developed during and after the 1960s, particularly in the United Kingdom and the United States. It has its roots in 1940s and 1950s rock and roll, itself heavily influenced by rhythm and blues and country music...
by providing up to six players with the ability to play three different controllers modeled after music instruments (a guitar
Guitar
The guitar is a plucked string instrument, usually played with fingers or a pick. The guitar consists of a body with a rigid neck to which the strings, generally six in number, are attached. Guitars are traditionally constructed of various woods and strung with animal gut or, more recently, with...
controller for lead guitar
Lead guitar
Lead guitar is a guitar part which plays melody lines, instrumental fill passages, guitar solos, and occasionally, some riffs within a song structure...
and bass guitar
Bass guitar
The bass guitar is a stringed instrument played primarily with the fingers or thumb , or by using a pick....
gameplay, a drum
Drum kit
A drum kit is a collection of drums, cymbals and often other percussion instruments, such as cowbells, wood blocks, triangles, chimes, or tambourines, arranged for convenient playing by a single person ....
controller and up to three microphone
Microphone
A microphone is an acoustic-to-electric transducer or sensor that converts sound into an electrical signal. In 1877, Emile Berliner invented the first microphone used as a telephone voice transmitter...
s for vocals). Players simulate the performance of rock music by using their controllers to play scrolling on-screen notes. For lead and bass guitar, this is accomplished by holding down colored buttons mimicking guitar fret
Fret
A fret is a raised portion on the neck of a stringed instrument, that extends generally across the full width of the neck. On most modern western instruments, frets are metal strips inserted into the fingerboard...
s and pushing the controller's strum bar; for drums, this requires striking the matching colored drumhead, or stepping on the pedal to simulate playing bass drum notes. A "Lefty" mode allows left-handed people to play, by switching which colour the beats are given. When singing vocals, the player must sing in relative pitch
Relative pitch
The term relative pitch may denote:* the distance of a musical note from a set point of reference, e.g. "three octaves above middle C"* a musician's ability to identify the intervals between given tones, regardless of their relation to concert pitch * the skill used by singers to correctly sing a...
to the original vocals. A pitch indicator displays the singer's accuracy relative to the original pitch. For songs with multi-part vocals, players need only to stay in tone with the lead singer to score points and keep their performance meter up, but players earn additional scoring bonuses when they successfully complete phrases in harmony.
As in previous Rock Band games, successfully hitting the proper notes in sequence earns points for each player and boosts their "performance meter". Each separate instrument is given a level, defined by their instrument icon, and the average level is also displayed. If a player fails to match the notes, their performance meter drops. If the meter empties, that player is forced to drop out of play, which in turn causes the band's overall performance to drop. Any player to drop out can be "saved" if another player activates "Beatlemania" (referred to as "Overdrive" in other Rock Band titles), which is collected by successfully completing specially marked phrases. These phrases appear in white, and if the phrase is completed, the energy bar, displayed at the bottom of every track, fills by one quarter. Beatlemania can also be used to temporarily increase the amount of points the band earns. Activating Beatlemania is specific to each "instrument". For guitar, the controller must be temporarily shifted to an upright position; for drums, a special "cymbal" (Green, or red for "Lefty" mode) is hit; and for vocals, a noise must be registered by the microphone when prompted.
Some alterations to the Rock Band formula were made to preserve the sound of The Beatles' music. Audio cues that provide feedback on how well the band is doing, typically through the crowd cheering, singing along with the lyrics, or booing if the band is failing, are not included. The virtual band members are not booed off the stage if a player fails a song. Rather, the game simply cuts to a "song failed" menu with the option to try again. The song is restarted from the beginning. Variations on Overdrive/Beatlemania activation include the removal of player-controlled audio effects. While guitar players can use the controller's whammy bar on sustained marked note to collect more Beatlemania, this does not alter the sound of the note. There are also no freestyle drum fills
Fill (music)
In popular music, a fill is a short musical passage, riff, or rhythmic sound which helps to sustain the listener's attention during a break between the phrases of a melody....
in the songs for activating Beatlemania; instead the player continues to perform the correct note sequence before being presented with a note to activate Beatlemania.
Throughout the song, players receive points for every note hit, and this is totalled up and displayed at the end of the song, along with a percentage of how many notes they hit, and a rating: 1 to 5 stars. If the score is close to perfect, normally requiring at least 98% of the notes, the rating is five 'gold' stars, instead of the normal bronze. The score is saved and shown alongside the song in the select screen; over time, as the song is replayed, it shows only the highest score.
Instrument peripherals
All currently available Rock Band peripherals are compatible with their respective console version of The Beatles: Rock Band. Similarly, peripherals designed for The Beatles: Rock Band are backward compatible with other Rock Band titles. Some controllers designed for Guitar Hero games will also work with The Beatles: Rock Band.Four new instrument peripherals modeled after those used by The Beatles members were introduced alongside the game: a Rickenbacker 325
Rickenbacker 325
-Overview:The Rickenbacker 325 was the first of the Capri series of hollow body guitars released in 1958 by Rickenbacker. It was designed by Roger Rossmeisl, a guitar craftsman from a family of German instrument makers. Production models were 20-3/4" short scale, dot fretboard inlays, and a small ...
guitar, a Gretsch Duo Jet
Gretsch 6128
The Gretsch 6128 is a semi-hollow body electric guitar manufactured by Gretsch since the mid 1950s.-Construction:Made of a chambered mahogany body, the Duo Jet model 6128 is one of Gretsch's most sought after guitars. One of the most notable differences between the Duo Jet and comparable guitars...
guitar, a Höfner bass
Höfner 500/1
The Höfner 500/1 violin bass is a hollow-bodied bass guitar manufactured by Höfner under several varieties...
and a Ludwig
Ludwig-Musser
Ludwig-Musser is a drum and percussion instrument manufacturer that is part of the Conn-Selmer division of Steinway Musical Instruments.The first product made by the Ludwig brothers, William and Theobaldner , was a bass drum pedal capable of playing faster beats than was typical of products of the...
drum set. These instrument controllers function similarly to the controllers designed for Rock Band 2, with most alterations being purely aesthetic. A "Limited Edition" bundle of the game includes one Höfner bass guitar controller, one Ludwig-branded drum controller, a microphone, a microphone stand and Beatles-themed postcards. A second, less expensive bundle configuration contains peripherals first introduced with the original Rock Band game; this bundle does not contain a mic stand or postcards. The game was also released as a SingStar bundle with two microphones, and finally as a standalone release. The Rickenbacker and Gretsch guitar peripherals are sold separately.
Modes
The Beatles: Rock Band features gameplay modes similar to other Rock Band games, playable both locally and online. "Story" mode is similar to the "Career" mode of the first Rock Band game and follows a linear progression through The Beatles history. Optional challenges are available in each story "chapter", tasking players to complete every song in a specific chapter as a single performance. By earning high score ratings for songs or challenges, players will unlock photographs and video clips of The Beatles taken from the Apple Corps' archive to provide "splashes of history". One such unlockable "prize" is an edited version of the 1963 Beatles Christmas Record.Up to six players can play any song in the game cooperatively via "Solo/Band Quickplay" mode. Two players can also play against one another in Rock Bands two competitive modes: "Tug of War", where two players perform alternating sections of songs to outdo the other's performance, and "Score Duel", where each player simultaneously plays the entirety of a song while trying to accumulate the highest score. Tug of War allows players to choose individual difficulty levels, while Score Duel requires that both players play at the same difficulty level. Both competitive modes require that players use the same type of instrument.
Several "Training" modes are available for The Beatles: Rock Band, including tutorials for both guitar/bass and drums. Practice modes are instrument-specific and allow players to practice entire songs or individual sections of songs. Guitar, bass, and drum practice modes allow players to slow the tempos of songs; vocal practice mode helps to emphasize the selected harmony portion of the vocals by adding a generated waveform
Waveform
Waveform means the shape and form of a signal such as a wave moving in a physical medium or an abstract representation.In many cases the medium in which the wave is being propagated does not permit a direct visual image of the form. In these cases, the term 'waveform' refers to the shape of a graph...
sound to the selected harmony line in tune with the lyrics. There are also two drum training modes called "Drum Lessons" and "Beatle Beats".
Before playing, a difficulty has to be selected: easy, medium, hard or expert. Expert is a match of the original notes; hard has some note-heavy drum rolls and other difficult or fast notes removed; medium takes away the orange notes (for guitar and bass) and anything else considered tricky. Easy is designed for new players, and gives an easy rhythm for those to settle into the game. However, there are too few notes for it to feel like they're playing the actual tune from the song. A "No Fail" mode has been carried over from Rock Band 2 and is accessible from the band members selection screen rather than from the game's main menu. This mode allows players to continue to play, even if their performance metre hits the bottom. In addition, No Fail mode is automatically enabled for any player who chooses the "Easy" difficulty.
Development
Prior to The Beatles: Rock Band, no song by The Beatles, nor a cover of a Beatles song, had been featured in any Guitar Hero or Rock Band title, whether as disc-based or downloadable content. The idea of The Beatles: Rock Band came about during a chance encounter between MTV president Van Toffler and Dhani HarrisonDhani Harrison
Dhani Harrison is an English musician and the son of George Harrison of The Beatles and Olivia Harrison. Harrison debuted as a professional musician when completing his father's final album Brainwashed after George Harrison's death in November 2001...
, son of George Harrison
George Harrison
George Harrison, MBE was an English musician, guitarist, singer-songwriter, actor and film producer who achieved international fame as lead guitarist of The Beatles. Often referred to as "the quiet Beatle", Harrison became over time an admirer of Indian mysticism, and introduced it to the other...
, at a luncheon sponsored by Robert Earl
Robert Earl (businessman)
Robert Ian Earl is the founder of the Planet Hollywood chain of fast-food restaurants and an Everton F.C. director.-Everton Football Club:On October 20 2006 Earl the sandwich king bought shares in Everton from major shareholders Paul and Anita Gregg, they resigned from the board following the sale....
during the 2006 Christmas holiday, shortly after MTV's acquisition of Harmonix. Dhani, having been familiar with the Guitar Hero
Guitar Hero
Guitar Hero is a music video game developed by Harmonix Music Systems and published by RedOctane for the PlayStation 2 video game console. It is the first entry in the Guitar Hero series. Guitar Hero was released on November 8, 2005 in North America, April 7, 2006 in Europe and June 15, 2006 in...
franchise and learning of the recent acquisition and plans for Rock Band
Rock Band
Rock Band is a music video game developed by Harmonix Music Systems, published by MTV Games and Electronic Arts. It is the first title in the Rock Band series. The PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 versions were released in the United States on November 20, 2007, while the PlayStation 2 version was...
from Toffler, suggested a game based on The Beatles. Though both Dhani and Toffler considered the concept an unlikely possibility, their meeting nonetheless spurred Dhani into further discussions with Harmonix's president, Alex Rigopulos
Alex Rigopulos
Alexander Peter "Alex" Rigopulos is the CEO of Harmonix Music Systems, a company he founded with Eran Egozy in 1995. Rigopulos personally cites Japanese game designers Masaya Matsuura, Tetsuya Mizuguchi, and Keita Takahashi as some artists that have inspired his work at Harmonix...
. At the same time, Dhani helped to introduce the Rock Band concept to Apple Corps
Apple Corps
Apple Corps Ltd. is a multi-armed multimedia corporation founded in January 1968 by the members of The Beatles to replace their earlier company and to form a conglomerate. Its name is a pun. Its chief division is Apple Records, which was launched in the same year...
, the music production company created by The Beatles, and its key shareholders Sir Paul McCartney
Paul McCartney
Sir James Paul McCartney, MBE, Hon RAM, FRCM is an English musician, singer-songwriter and composer. Formerly of The Beatles and Wings , McCartney is listed in Guinness World Records as the "most successful musician and composer in popular music history", with 60 gold discs and sales of 100...
, Ringo Starr
Ringo Starr
Richard Starkey, MBE better known by his stage name Ringo Starr, is an English musician and actor who gained worldwide fame as the drummer for The Beatles. When the band formed in 1960, Starr was a member of another Liverpool band, Rory Storm and the Hurricanes. He became The Beatles' drummer in...
and Yoko Ono
Yoko Ono
is a Japanese artist, musician, author and peace activist, known for her work in avant-garde art, music and filmmaking as well as her marriage to John Lennon...
. Initial meetings were arranged with the shareholders using an early prototype of the game to garner their interest in the title. One stipulation that the Apple Corps shareholders required of Harmonix was that the game feature songs spanning the band's entire career. Harmonix subsequently created a more complete demonstration that used examples of music and artwork that they envisioned for the game. The five-song demo, which included an early build for "Here Comes the Sun
Here Comes the Sun
"Here Comes the Sun" is a song by George Harrison from The Beatles' 1969 album Abbey Road. It is regarded as one of the most popular Beatles songs. The song was written while Harrison was away from all of these troubles...
", was finished in February 2008. It was used to gain approval from McCartney, Starr, Ono and Olivia Harrison, effectively bringing them aboard the project as creative partners.
The Apple Corps shareholders considered The Beatles: Rock Band a new way to introduce the band's music to the public. They approved of the songs and venues that would appear in the game, and provided feedback on the artwork, character representations, and storyboards for animation sequences. McCartney and Starr fact-checked certain anecdotes relating to The Beatles while Ono and Harrison provided insight on their late husbands' performances and lyrics. At the developer's request, Ono visited the Harmonix offices late in development to provide critical feedback on several visual elements. In a Wired
Wired News
Wired News is an online technology news website, formerly known as HotWired, that split off from Wired magazine when the magazine was purchased by Condé Nast Publishing in the 1990s. Wired News was owned by Lycos not long after the split, until Condé Nast purchased Wired News on July 11, 2006...
article, MTV's senior vice president of the games division Paul DeGooyer was quoted saying "She gave the designers hell". DeGooyer clarified the statement soon after the article had been published, asserting that the visit was "a high point of the two-year development process" and "has been mischaracterized by some in the press."
Though The Beatles: Rock Band aims to present a visual and musical history of The Beatles, the game does not attempt to replicate periods of turmoil between the band members. Rather, it presents a "fantasy version" of The Beatles to better serve the entertainment purposes of the video game. For example, Ringo Starr was estranged from the rest of the band during periods of recording for The Beatles
The Beatles (album)
The Beatles is the ninth official album by the English rock group The Beatles, a double album released in 1968. It is also commonly known as "The White Album" as it has no graphics or text other than the band's name embossed on its plain white sleeve.The album was written and recorded during a...
(commonly referred to as The White Album). Thus, he did not perform on certain songs, such as "Back in the U.S.S.R.". In the game, however, the Ringo Starr character plays drums during the animated performance of the song.
Music production
Preparing The Beatles' songs for Rock Band was a significant technical challenge for Harmonix. The band's earlier songs, recorded on two- and four-trackMultitrack recording
Multitrack recording is a method of sound recording that allows for the separate recording of multiple sound sources to create a cohesive whole...
equipment, needed to be reworked into a multitrack format that is essential in providing feedback to players. Each of the game's four instrument parts need to have their own "stems"—for example, when a player misplays a note from the guitar track, the guitar audio for the song will be temporarily quieted, leaving the other instruments' audio unaffected. Such isolated tracks were not available through the new 2009 remasters, so the team started with the original master recording
Master recording
A multitrack recording master tape, disk or computer files on which productions are developed for later mixing, is known as the multi-track master, while the tape, disk or computer files holding a mix is called a mixed master.It is standard practice to make a copy of a master recording, known as...
s.
The development team was able to bring Giles Martin
Giles Martin
Giles Martin is an English record producer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist. He is the son of Sir George Martin, famed producer of almost all of The Beatles' records.- Biography :...
aboard as the game's music producer. Martin had recently completed co-production on the 2006 Love
Love (The Beatles album)
Love is a Grammy Award-winning soundtrack remix album of music recorded by The Beatles, released in November 2006. It features music compiled and remixed as a mashup for the Cirque du Soleil show of the same name...
project with his father George Martin
George Martin
Sir George Henry Martin CBE is an English record producer, arranger, composer and musician. He is sometimes referred to as "the Fifth Beatle"— a title that he often describes as "nonsense," but the fact remains that he served as producer on all but one of The Beatles' original albums...
and was already familiar with The Beatles catalogue. Through that project, Martin created digital back-up copies of all the original tapes, which aided his work on The Beatles: Rock Band. Using audio forensics software, Martin and his team were able to extract the audio of individual instruments by isolating sounds at certain frequencies with digital filters, thus assuring multitrack capabilities for The Beatles' master recordings. This process, conducted at Abbey Road Studio
Abbey Road Studios
Abbey Road Studios is a recording studio located at 3 Abbey Road, St John's Wood, City of Westminster, London, England. It was established in November 1931 by the Gramophone Company, a predecessor of British music company EMI, its present owner...
52 with the help of Paul Hicks and other Abbey Road recording engineers, reportedly took months to complete.
During the game's development, Harmonix only used low-fidelity versions of the remasters, which were sufficient for programming and note charting; Apple Corps feared that the leak of any high-fidelity remastered track from Abbey Road studios would lead to the unauthorized use of samples of The Beatles' music in remixes. High-fidelity versions of the songs were not implemented until the final publishing of the game. Harmonix performed very little additional remixing upon receipt of these remasters; in some cases, three different guitar parts—lead, solo, and rhythm—were brought into a single cohesive guitar part, slightly raising the volume of the specific guitar track that was used in note tracking to make it easier for the player to follow in the game. The ability for up to three players to sing vocal harmonies, a feature not present in previous Rock Band games, was designed and implemented as an optional feature so as not to be overwhelming to players.
While live recordings of songs, such as "Paperback Writer" at the Budokan
Nippon Budokan
The , often shortened to simply Budokan, is an indoor arena in central Tokyo, Japan.This is the location where many "Live at the Budokan" albums were recorded...
, were available, Martin believed some of these renditions were sloppy and would not be enjoyable to play. Instead, he took the studio versions and added audio effects from the live performances to create a "live concert" ambiance. In several instances, the team also opted to slightly restructure the endings to certain songs, particularly those that fade out
Fade (audio engineering)
In audio engineering, a fade is a gradual increase or decrease in the level of an audio signal. The term can also be used for film cinematography or theater lighting, in much the same way ....
. Differences in editing between the album versions and in-game versions of songs continued with the release of downloadable content
Downloadable content
Downloadable content is official additional content for a video game distributed through the Internet. Downloadable content can be of several types, ranging from a single in-game outfit to an entirely new, extensive storyline, similarly to an expansion pack. As such, DLC may add new game modes,...
, notably the inclusion of a once-missing final chord at the end of the Abbey Road closer "Her Majesty
Her Majesty (song)
"Her Majesty" is a song written by Paul McCartney that appears on The Beatles' album Abbey Road. "Her Majesty" is the final track of the album and appears fourteen seconds after the song "The End", but was not listed on the original sleeve...
".
Dhani Harrison has stated the game will include "stuff that has never been heard, never been released." Some of the new material includes band chatter and instrument tunes taken from recorded performances. This audio plays during the loading screens or bookends certain songs. Within the Abbey Road studio, Martin recreated some of the incidental sound, played through speakers but capturing the acoustics of the studio room. In one instance, for example, this process involved recording four people miming the act of drinking tea. The entirety of the game's credits are also made up of this band chatter and studio takes.
In coordination with the art team, sound programmers attempted to realistically map the game's note tracks relative to the real performances by The Beatles. For guitar parts, colored notes were selected not necessarily to match tonally with the music, but to replicate the movement and finger positioning used by the original performers. These were then matched against ten different strumming animations to be used for the virtual depictions of the guitarists. The "Expert" difficulty drum tracks attempt to match every single drum beat that is performed in a song, including some peculiar rhythms brought about by Starr's ambidextrous
Ambidexterity
Ambidexterity is the state of being equally adept in the use of both left and right appendages . It is one of the most famous varieties of cross-dominance. People that are naturally ambidextrous are rare, with only one out of one hundred people being naturally ambidextrous...
drumming habits. Vocals were slowed down and broken into phonetic segments, allowing the art team to determine the appropriate facial movement for the virtual characters to go along with the lyrics.
Art production
Art assets were created with help of Apple Corps, with Harmonix developers gaining access to their unique archive as well as personal photos from the shareholders. Apple Corps had strict desires for how The Beatles were to appear; art director Ryan LesserRyan Lesser
Ryan Lesser is a video game designer, musician and graphic artist living in Providence, Rhode Island. A graduate of Rhode Island School of Design, he is best known for his design work on influential video games Karaoke Revolution and Guitar Hero....
noted that the art team's earliest character designs were met with "brutal" responses from Apple, but that this feedback was essential in developing the visual styles of the band. In addition to Apple Corps' material, Harmonix designers watched the eight-part The Beatles Anthology
The Beatles Anthology (film)
The Beatles Anthology is a documentary series on the career of The Beatles. It was broadcast on television in six abridged parts between November and December 1995. An eight volume VHS set and an 8 disc Laserdisc set were released on 5 September 1996...
on a weekly basis for further reference on the band. These materials were meticulously reviewed to replicate the outfits that The Beatles wore for each of their concerts, as well as the instruments they used for recordings and live performances.
Although McCartney had hoped technology would allow the virtual band members to appear in hyper-realistic detail, Harmonix opted to start with more exaggerated, cartoon-like designs, gradually scaling them back to appear more realistic. Animation for The Beatles characters was aided by motion capture
Motion capture
Motion capture, motion tracking, or mocap are terms used to describe the process of recording movement and translating that movement on to a digital model. It is used in military, entertainment, sports, and medical applications, and for validation of computer vision and robotics...
provided by Beatles tribute bands. Dhani Harrison also assisted with modeling for character animation in the game.
The team designed venues that represented parts of The Beatles' history in order to create an atmosphere of authenticity. For example, the set of The Ed Sullivan Show
The Ed Sullivan Show
The Ed Sullivan Show is an American TV variety show that originally ran on CBS from Sunday June 20, 1948 to Sunday June 6, 1971, and was hosted by New York entertainment columnist Ed Sullivan....
was recreated from photographs and videos, including a rare color photograph in Apple's collection that showed the yellow tint used to enhance the video as shown on black-and-white television sets. The Cavern Club
The Cavern Club
The Cavern Club is a rock and roll club in Liverpool, England. Opened on Wednesday 16 January 1957, the club had their first performance by The Beatles on 9 February 1961, and where Brian Epstein first saw The Beatles performing on 9 November 1961....
, Shea Stadium
Shea Stadium
William A. Shea Municipal Stadium, usually shortened to Shea Stadium or just Shea , was a stadium in the New York City borough of Queens, in Flushing Meadows–Corona Park. It was the home baseball park of Major League Baseball's New York Mets from 1964 to 2008...
, Budokan
Nippon Budokan
The , often shortened to simply Budokan, is an indoor arena in central Tokyo, Japan.This is the location where many "Live at the Budokan" albums were recorded...
, Abbey Road Studios
Abbey Road Studios
Abbey Road Studios is a recording studio located at 3 Abbey Road, St John's Wood, City of Westminster, London, England. It was established in November 1931 by the Gramophone Company, a predecessor of British music company EMI, its present owner...
and the rooftop of the Apple Corps Headquarters also appear as venues in the game. Fashions of the 1960s were researched to properly apply them to the various virtual crowds at these locations.
Twenty of the game's on-disc songs are associated with "dreamscape" sequences in conjunction with the Abbey Road venue, representing the exclusively studio-based nature of the band
The Beatles: the studio years
The Beatles' studio years began when, after a period of several years spanning their early period in Germany, the era of Beatlemania in the UK and their American tours, The Beatles ceased to perform live concerts and devoted their efforts more fully to creating new material in the recording...
in their later years. Animation sequences for songs linked with dreamscapes feature abstract or representative scenery. For example, the sequence for "Octopus's Garden
Octopus's Garden
"Octopus's Garden" is a song by The Beatles written by Ringo Starr from their 1969 album Abbey Road....
" takes place in an underwater reef, while the sequence for "I Am the Walrus
I Am the Walrus
"I Am the Walrus" is a 1967 song by The Beatles, written by John Lennon and credited to Lennon–McCartney. Lennon claimed he wrote the first two lines on separate acid trips. The song was in the Beatles' 1967 television film and album Magical Mystery Tour, and was the B-side to the #1 hit "Hello,...
" is reminiscent of the band's psychedelic performance of the song in the 1967 film Magical Mystery Tour
Magical Mystery Tour (film)
Magical Mystery Tour is an hour-long British television film starring The Beatles that originally aired on BBC1 on 26 December 1967...
. The concept of dreamscapes evolved from brainstorming sessions between Harmonix and Apple Corps.; as Rock Band was a game that celebrated the performance of music, simply portraying The Beatles performing in the Abbey Road studio was not enough, and the dreamscape sequences provided a way to surpass that. While the art team used existing materials as reference, the Apple Corps. shareholders encouraged the team to interpret the songs in new ways. For inspiration, Harmonix looked to Cirque du Soleil
Cirque du Soleil
Cirque du Soleil , is a Canadian entertainment company, self-described as a "dramatic mix of circus arts and street entertainment." Based in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, and located in the inner-city area of Saint-Michel, it was founded in Baie-Saint-Paul in 1984 by two former street performers, Guy...
's approach in interpreting The Beatles catalogue for the Love
LOVE (Cirque du Soleil)
Love is a 2006 theatrical production by Cirque du Soleil which combines the re-produced and re-imagined music of The Beatles with an interpretive, circus-based artistic and athletic stage performance. The show plays at a specially built theatre at The Mirage in Las Vegas.A joint venture between...
stage show. Storyboard
Storyboard
Storyboards are graphic organizers in the form of illustrations or images displayed in sequence for the purpose of pre-visualizing a motion picture, animation, motion graphic or interactive media sequence....
s for these animated sequences were created using both hand-drawn and 2D computer-generated art. In some cases, the computer-generated elements used in storyboarding were kept as elements in the final venue, such as computer-generated blades of grass in the "Here Comes the Sun" sequence.
The game includes heavily stylized opening and ending cinematics produced in part by Pete Candeland of Passion Pictures
Passion Pictures
Passion Pictures is a film and animation production company based in Rathbone Place, off Oxford Street in London's West End. They have been responsible for much of the production of the visual element of the animated rock band Gorillaz....
, with help from animator Robert Valley and background visuals from Alberto Mielgo. Candeland, who is known for his work animating Gorillaz
Gorillaz
Gorillaz is an English musical project created in 1998 by Damon Albarn and Jamie Hewlett. This project consists of Gorillaz music itself and an extensive fictional universe depicting a "virtual band" of cartoon characters...
videos, also produced the opening cinematics for both the original Rock Band and Rock Band 2. Within two and a half minutes, the opening cinematic provides a brief representative history of the band interspersed with numerous references to songs by The Beatles, followed by more metaphorical scenes reflecting their studio albums. Prior to each of the chapters in the game's Story mode, the game presents short introductory animations; these animations were prepared by graphic design studio MK12
MK12
MK12 is a design and filmmaking collective based in Kansas City, Missouri, with acclaim in both commercial and artistic arenas. Founded in 2000 by art school refugees Jed Carter, Tim Fisher, Matt Fraction and Ben Radatz and later joined by designer / composer Shaun Hamontree and computer guru Chad...
, who had previously worked on the opening cinematics for movies such as Stranger than Fiction and Quantum of Solace.
Promotion
Viacom
Viacom Inc. , short for "Video & Audio Communications", is an American media conglomerate with interests primarily in, but not limited to, cinema and cable television...
announced an exclusive agreement with Apple Corps, Ltd.
Apple Corps
Apple Corps Ltd. is a multi-armed multimedia corporation founded in January 1968 by the members of The Beatles to replace their earlier company and to form a conglomerate. Its name is a pun. Its chief division is Apple Records, which was launched in the same year...
to produce the standalone title. Prior to this announcement, industry rumours reported that both Harmonix/MTV Games and Activision
Activision
Activision is an American publisher, majority owned by French conglomerate Vivendi SA. Its current CEO is Robert Kotick. It was founded on October 1, 1979 and was the world's first independent developer and distributor of video games for gaming consoles...
were vying for The Beatles songs, the latter for the Guitar Hero
Guitar Hero
Guitar Hero is a music video game developed by Harmonix Music Systems and published by RedOctane for the PlayStation 2 video game console. It is the first entry in the Guitar Hero series. Guitar Hero was released on November 8, 2005 in North America, April 7, 2006 in Europe and June 15, 2006 in...
franchise. The agreement was the result of 17 months of discussions. John Drake, PR spokesperson for Harmonix, stated that Apple Corps "respected and appreciated what Harmonix does creatively for rhythm games" as part of the success of the deal. Eversheds
Eversheds
Eversheds LLP is an international law firm headquartered in London, United Kingdom. It is one of the 50 largest law firms in the world measured by revenues. In 2009/10 it achieved total revenues of £355.2 million, making it the ninth-largest UK-based law firm by this measurement, and profits per...
, the legal firm working for Apple Corps. for both The Beatles: Rock Band and the upcoming remake of Yellow Submarine by Disney
The Walt Disney Company
The Walt Disney Company is the largest media conglomerate in the world in terms of revenue. Founded on October 16, 1923, by Walt and Roy Disney as the Disney Brothers Cartoon Studio, Walt Disney Productions established itself as a leader in the American animation industry before diversifying into...
, stated that it took six months to complete the complex agreements and paperwork over the copyrights, trademarks, and publishing issues. Viacom's deal with The Beatles' property owners includes royalties
Royalties
Royalties are usage-based payments made by one party to another for the right to ongoing use of an asset, sometimes an intellectual property...
with a guaranteed minimum of $
United States dollar
The United States dollar , also referred to as the American dollar, is the official currency of the United States of America. It is divided into 100 smaller units called cents or pennies....
10 million and upwards of $40 million based on initial sales projections, an amount that chairman Martin Bendier of Sony/ATV Publishing has stated to be "not even comparable to anything that has been done before". The licensing of The Beatles' work for the game was considered a critical step in the later negotiations and availability of the band's songs on iTunes about a year after the game's release. A further complication arose about a year after the game's release; Chrysalis Group
Chrysalis Group
Chrysalis Group is a UK media company. It was founded by Chris Wright, who remains chairman and was listed the 1,000th richest person in the UK in The Times Rich List 2009...
legally challenged EMI over a previous 1965 agreement whereby EMI would pay Chrysalis up to 1.5% of royalties on sales of The Beatles' records, and claimed that they are owned ₤500,000 for the two million units sold of The Beatles: Rock Band. EMI asserts that the video game format would not be covered under the concept of a "record" from the 1965 agreement.
The game was released internationally on 9 September 2009. The game's release was planned to coincide with the release of the new, remastered CD versions of The Beatles albums. Footage from The Beatles: Rock Band was revealed for the first time on 18 April 2009, during Paul McCartney's performance at the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival
Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival
The Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival is a three-day annual music and arts festival, organized by Goldenvoice and held at the Empire Polo Club in Indio, California, in the Inland Empire's Coachella Valley...
. McCartney continued to utilize gameplay footage during his concert performances while touring during the months prior to the game's release. The game was formally showcased on 1 June 2009 at E3 2009
Electronic Entertainment Expo 2009
The Electronic Entertainment Expo 2009, commonly known as the E3 2009, was the 15th Electronic Entertainment Expo held. The event took place on June 2, 3, and 4 at the Los Angeles Convention Center. E3 is an annual trade show for the computer and video games industry presented by the Entertainment...
. Presented by Harmonix at the beginning of the Microsoft
Microsoft
Microsoft Corporation is an American public multinational corporation headquartered in Redmond, Washington, USA that develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of products and services predominantly related to computing through its various product divisions...
press conference, Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr briefly took the stage to discuss the games. Yoko Ono and Olivia Harrison also made a brief appearance. The game's E3 demo booth was modeled as a recreation of Abbey Road Studios.
The game's official website was revealed early in 2009, showing only images of the Abbey Road studios and the game's release date. Over time, images of The Beatles' favored instruments appeared in the studio as their game peripheral replicas were announced. On 5 May 2009, the website was updated to include general information and promotional media. Customers who pre-ordered the game from selected vendors received an access code to view exclusive images and media on the site before it was eventually made public.
In August 2009, VH1 Classic aired music videos from the TV special Around The Beatles
Around The Beatles
Around The Beatles was a 1964 television special, featuring The Beatles, produced by Jack Good for ITV/Rediffusion London. It was broadcast internationally, and aired live from IBC Studios in London 19 April 1964...
(1964), Help!
Help! (film)
Help! is a 1965 film directed by Richard Lester, starring The Beatles—John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr—and featuring Leo McKern, Eleanor Bron, Victor Spinetti, John Bluthal, Roy Kinnear and Patrick Cargill. Help! was the second feature film made by the Beatles and is a...
(1965), and a music video of the "Birthday" gameplay footage, promoting the launch of The Beatles Rock Band online store. This store was also launched by several segments held on the home shopping channel
Shopping channel
Shopping channels are television specialty channels that present shopping related content, particularly for home shopping enthusiasts.-USA:* America's Store* Home Shopping Network* Jewelry Television* QVC* Shop at Home Network* ShopNBC...
, QVC
QVC
QVC is a multinational corporation specializing in televised home shopping. Founded in 1986 by Joseph Segel in West Goshen Township, Pennsylvania, United States, QVC broadcasts in five countries as QVC US, QVC UK, QVC Germany, QVC Japan and – QVC Italy to 200 million households...
, for the game, The Beatles' remastered albums, and other related products; several Harmonix employees were present to demonstrate the game.
A video advertisement for the game featuring the song "Come Together
Come Together
"Come Together" is a song by The Beatles written by John Lennon and credited to Lennon–McCartney. The song is the opening track on The Beatles' September 1969 album Abbey Road....
" premiered on 28 August 2009. The spot features a live action recreation of the iconic Abbey Road album cover; as The Beatles cross the road, a crowd of people follow, some of whom are carrying the game's controllers. The advertisement was directed by Marcel Langenegger, who worked with Apple Corps and Giles Martin to build an Abbey Road set at a Hollywood studio, and to blend archival footage of The Beatles into the video. Body double
Body double
A body double is a general term for someone who substitutes for the credited actor of a character in any recorded visual medium, in shots where the character's body is shown but the face is either not visible or shown indistinctly, or in shots where the image of the credited actor's face is joined,...
s, vetted by the Apple Corps shareholders, appear in some shots. On 8 September 2009, Dhani Harrison
Dhani Harrison
Dhani Harrison is an English musician and the son of George Harrison of The Beatles and Olivia Harrison. Harrison debuted as a professional musician when completing his father's final album Brainwashed after George Harrison's death in November 2001...
appeared as a guest on The Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien
The Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien
The Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien is an American late-night talk show that featured Conan O'Brien as host from June 1, 2009 to January 22, 2010 as part of NBC's long-running Tonight Show franchise...
to promote the game. Harrison and O'Brien (along with Tonight Show web manager Aaron Bleyaert and The Tonight Show Band member Mark Pender) performed the song "Birthday" at the close of the show.
Soundtrack
The game includes 45 songs from twelve of The Beatles albumsThe Beatles discography
In their native United Kingdom during 1962–1970, The Beatles released 12 studio albums, 13 EPs, and 22 singles. However, the band's international discography is complicated, due to different versions of their albums sometimes being released in other countries, particularly during their early years...
recorded during their 1962–1969 tenure with EMI Records
EMI Records
EMI Records is the flagship record label founded by the EMI company in 1972 and launched in January 1973 as the successor to its Columbia label. The EMI label was launched worldwide...
. With the exception of Magical Mystery Tour, track information is based on the United Kingdom-released versions of the albums. Six non-album singles and the mashup
Mashup (music)
A mashup or bootleg is a song or composition created by blending two or more pre-recorded songs, usually by overlaying the vocal track of one song seamlessly over the instrumental track of another...
track "Within You Without You
Within You Without You
"Within You Without You" is a song written by George Harrison, released on The Beatles' 1967 album, Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.-Composition:...
/Tomorrow Never Knows
Tomorrow Never Knows
"Tomorrow Never Knows" is the final track of The Beatles' 1966 studio album Revolver but the first to be recorded. Credited as a Lennon–McCartney song, it was written primarily by John Lennon...
" from the 2006 remix album
Remix album
A remix album is an album consisting mostly of remixes or re-recorded versions of a music artists' earlier released material.One of the earliest remix albums was 1971's Aerial Pandemonium Ballet by Harry Nilsson, which was released by Nilsson after the successes of Everybody's Talkin and The Point!...
Love
Love (The Beatles album)
Love is a Grammy Award-winning soundtrack remix album of music recorded by The Beatles, released in November 2006. It features music compiled and remixed as a mashup for the Cirque du Soleil show of the same name...
have also been included. Selections of the soundtrack are under license from Sony/ATV Music Publishing Company. Although Michael Jackson
Michael Jackson
Michael Joseph Jackson was an American recording artist, entertainer, and businessman. Referred to as the King of Pop, or by his initials MJ, Jackson is recognized as the most successful entertainer of all time by Guinness World Records...
, who owned 50% of the publishing rights to The Beatles songs through Sony/ATV, died in June 2009, the sale of his estate did not affect the songs or the release schedule of The Beatles: Rock Band, according to Harmonix.
Downloadable content
Additional songs are available for the game as downloadable contentDownloadable content
Downloadable content is official additional content for a video game distributed through the Internet. Downloadable content can be of several types, ranging from a single in-game outfit to an entirely new, extensive storyline, similarly to an expansion pack. As such, DLC may add new game modes,...
. The song "All You Need Is Love
All You Need Is Love
"All You Need Is Love" is a song written by John Lennon and credited to Lennon–McCartney. It was first performed by The Beatles on Our World, the first live global television link. Watched by 400 million in 26 countries, the programme was broadcast via satellite on 25 June 1967...
" was first to appear as downloadable content, proceeds from which ($1.40 of the $2 song cost) are donated to Doctors Without Borders. The song was initially made available as an exclusive for Xbox 360 on the same day the game was released. Within two weeks of the game's release, "All You Need Is Love" was announced by Microsoft and MTV to be the fastest-selling downloadable song across any of the Rock Band platforms, with tens of thousands of downloads; The song had been downloaded more than 100,000 times by the end of September, and by February 2010, had generated over $200,000 for the charity. The song is now available for download on the Wii and PlayStation 3.
Full albums were also made available as downloadable content; the remaining songs from Abbey Road, Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band
Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band
Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band is the eighth studio album by the English rock band The Beatles, released on 1 June 1967 on the Parlophone label and produced by George Martin...
, and Rubber Soul
Rubber Soul
Rubber Soul is the sixth studio album by the English rock group The Beatles, released in December 1965. Produced by George Martin, Rubber Soul had been recorded in just over four weeks to make the Christmas market...
have since been released on the consoles' respective store services. While there is potential for the entire Beatles catalogue to be made available, this will be unlikely, according to John Drake of Harmonix. Drake identified the costly development process as a potentially prohibitive factor: "Every time we do one song, it's not like Rock Band where we wait for the masters to come in and just author them ... its like, send people to Abbey Road, use the original tape, separate them out ... it costs thousands of dollars." Drake asserted that Harmonix would take sales of the currently announced albums into consideration before continuing development of downloadable content. Harmonix's Foster stated that solo acts from The Beatles' members will not be included as downloadable content for The Beatles: Rock Band though did not rule out these acts appearing in other Rock Band games. A three pack of songs from Paul McCartney's 2009 live album, Good Evening New York City
Good Evening New York City
Good Evening New York City is a CD/DVD double live album by Paul McCartney consisting of material performed over three nights as the inaugural concert at New York City's Citi Field, 17, 18 and 21 July 2009, part of his Summer Live '09 concert tour. Over 180,000 tickets were sold within hours of the...
, was made available for the main Rock Band series and Lego Rock Band
Lego Rock Band
Lego Rock Band is a music video game and part of the Rock Band series developed by Harmonix Music Systems, but also incorporates elements from other Lego video games as developed by Traveller's Tales. The game is published by Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment and MTV Games...
on 5 January 2010, while Lennon's "Imagine
Imagine (song)
"Imagine" is a song written and performed by the English musician John Lennon. It is the opening track on his album Imagine, released in 1971...
" is a part of the Rock Band 3
Rock Band 3
Rock Band 3 is a music video game, developed by Harmonix Music Systems. The game was initially published and distributed by MTV Games and Electronic Arts, respectively, with Mad Catz taking over both roles a year later. It is the third main game in the Rock Band series...
soundtrack, with the full Imagine
Imagine (album)
Imagine is the second album by John Lennon. Recorded and released in 1971, the album tended toward songs that were gentler, more commercial and less avant-garde than those on his critically acclaimed previous album, John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band. The album is considered the most popular of his works...
album arriving later as downloadable content in celebration of Lennon's 70th birthday. A pack featuring Paul McCartney's band Wings
Wings (band)
Wings were a British-American rock group formed in 1971 by Paul McCartney, Denny Laine and Linda McCartney that remained active until 1981....
was also released as DLC for Rock Band 3.
The respective downloadable content for The Beatles: Rock Band and other currently available Rock Band titles are not cross-compatible. Furthermore, the songs contained on The Beatles disc are not exportable to other games in the Rock Band series. Harmonix's Chris Foster cited the game's new vocal harmony feature as well as the unique song-specific dreamscape animations as reasons for the lack of exportability to other Rock Band games. John Drake stated that the developer had a responsibility to treat The Beatles' songs as "iconic", and keep its music separated from other songs.
Reception
The Beatles: Rock Band received high praise from several media outlets upon release. Regarding the game's cross-generational appeal, Chad Sapieha of The Globe and MailThe Globe and Mail
The Globe and Mail is a nationally distributed Canadian newspaper, based in Toronto and printed in six cities across the country. With a weekly readership of approximately 1 million, it is Canada's largest-circulation national newspaper and second-largest daily newspaper after the Toronto Star...
suggested that the game would spark a new wave of Beatlemania
Beatlemania
Beatlemania is a term that originated during the 1960s to describe the intense fan frenzy directed toward The Beatles during the early years of their success...
, while Seth Schiesel of The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
called it "nothing less than a cultural watershed". Some critics hailed the title as landmark of the music game genre; Randy Lewis of the Los Angeles Times
Los Angeles Times
The Los Angeles Times is a daily newspaper published in Los Angeles, California, since 1881. It was the second-largest metropolitan newspaper in circulation in the United States in 2008 and the fourth most widely distributed newspaper in the country....
described the game as a "quantum leap forward for the music video game", while Johnny Minkley of Eurogamer
Eurogamer
Eurogamer is a Brighton-based website focused on video games news, reviews, previews and interviews. It is operated by Eurogamer Network Ltd., which was formed in 1999 by brothers Rupert and Nick Loman. Eurogamer has grown to become one of the most important European-based websites focused on...
called it "the new standard by which all band-specific game experiences will be judged".
Described as an "interactive Beatles experience", the game was considered to bring players closer to the band through both technical and emotional means. By playing each song's respective note chart, players were said to have a better appreciation for the structure and complexity of the compositions and performances by The Beatles. Emotionally, critics commented on the sentimental values of the game's career mode, recalling the history of the band. Critics were mostly positive concerning the visual and aural elements of the game; G4
G4 (TV channel)
G4, also known as G4 TV, is an American cable- and satellite-television channel originally geared primarily toward young adult viewers, originally based on the world of video games...
's Abbie Heppe considered it a preferable package to the newly remastered albums, citing song-specific animations as a strong feature. The dreamscape sequences in particular were likened to live performances, praised as "dazzling" and "evocative". However, Schiesel remarked that due to the players' concentration on the note tracks, the animations "serve mostly to entertain onlookers rather than the players themselves". Heppe observed that the color saturation of the background elements as well as the "Beatlemania" visual effects can sometimes contrast poorly with the scrolling notes, making it difficult to play. After the game's release, Harmonix lead designer Chris Foster acknowledged that the visuals can be "too overwhelming for [some players] at moments". The implementation of three-part harmonies, expressed by some to be the most significant addition to the series, was well-received.
Critics primarily found fault with the game's length, as the bulk of the game's content can be completed in only a few hours. Will Tuttle of GameSpy
GameSpy
GameSpy Industries, Inc., known simply as GameSpy, is a division of IGN Entertainment, which operates a network of game websites and provides online video game-related services and software. GameSpy dates back to the 1996 release of an internet Quake server search program named QSpy. The current...
questioned whether Harmonix limited the number of songs on release knowing that there would be a market for the game's downloadable content in the near future. The low number of songs, along with the new themed instrument controllers, were found to make the game an expensive proposition for those new to rhythm games. Due to the limited selection of songs on the disc, some critics questioned the specific inclusion of certain songs or the exclusion of more popular songs. Furthermore, critics claimed that the game's complete dedication to The Beatles, without the option for cross-compatibility with Rock Band or vice versa, can potentially lead to tedious play sessions with minimal variety, hampering the social nature of the game. Justin Haywald of 1UP.com
1UP.com
1UP.com is a video game website owned by IGN Entertainment, a division of News Corporation. Previously, the site was owned by Ziff Davis before being sold to UGO Entertainment in 2009....
considered that in attaching the Rock Band name to the game's title, there was a certain expectation on an expandable library of songs and interoperability with previous Rock Band titles, which The Beatles: Rock Band failed to meet. Some players coming from previous versions of Rock Band would consider the songs in The Beatles: Rock Band to lack technical challenge. However, the less difficult note tracks were seen to be a welcoming benefit for newcomers to the series as well as those attempting to sing along with the harmony portions of the game. For purist fans, some critics noted that the game purposely avoids certain aspects of The Beatles' history; former band members such as Pete Best
Pete Best
Pete Best is a British musician, best known as the original drummer in The Beatles. He was born in the city of Madras, British India...
or collaborators such as Billy Preston
Billy Preston
William Everett "Billy" Preston was a musician who gained notoriety and fame, first as a session musician for the likes of Sam Cooke, Ray Charles and The Beatles, and later finding fame as a solo artist with hits such as "Space Race", "Will It Go Round in Circles" and "Nothing from...
or Eric Clapton
Eric Clapton
Eric Patrick Clapton, CBE, is an English guitarist and singer-songwriter. Clapton is the only three-time inductee to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame: once as a solo artist, and separately as a member of The Yardbirds and Cream. Clapton has been referred to as one of the most important and...
are never seen during gameplay. Concerning supplemental content, Hilary Goldstein of IGN
IGN
IGN is an entertainment website that focuses on video games, films, music and other media. IGN's main website comprises several specialty sites or "channels", each occupying a subdomain and covering a specific area of entertainment...
felt the extra features could have been more substantial, especially in comparison to the additional material that accompanies the remastered CDs.
PC World
PC World (magazine)
PC World is a global computer magazine published monthly by IDG. It offers advice on various aspects of PCs and related items, the Internet, and other personal-technology products and services...
listed The Beatles: Rock Band as their ninth Best Product of 2009. The game won for 'Best Music Game' on the Spike Video Game Awards 2009. The game won the "Family Game of the Year" and was nominated for the "Outstanding Achievement in Soundtrack" 13th Annual Interactive Achievement Awards from the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences
Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences
The Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences , founded in 1996, is a non-profit organization that promotes computer and video game entertainment with the annual D.I.C.E. Summit event, where its Interactive Achievement Awards ceremony has been held annually since 1998...
.
The game was also nominated for the "Best Audio" Game Developers Choice Award
Game Developers Choice Awards
The Game Developers Choice Awards are annually presented by the Game Developers Conference for outstanding game developers and games.Introduced in 2001, the Game Developers Choice Awards were preceded by the Spotlight Awards, which were presented from 1997 to 1999.The 2009 award presentation was...
. The game's official website, published by Harmonix, won the "Games-Related" category for the 14th Annual Webby Awards
Webby Awards
A Webby Award is an international award presented annually by The International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences for excellence on the Internet with categories in websites, interactive advertising, online film and video, and mobile....
. In 2010, the game was included as one of the titles in the book 1001 Video Games You Must Play Before You Die
Quintessence Editions Ltd.
Quintessence Editions Ltd. is a publishing company based in London which is the originator of the "1001 Before You Die" series. Typically, the titles in this series are intended as reference books. They are illustrated books authored by multiple contributors...
.
The Beatles: Rock Band is currently being used as a finale for each performance of the 125th anniversary season of the Boston Pops Orchestra
Boston Pops Orchestra
The Boston Pops Orchestra is an American orchestra based in Boston, Massachusetts, that specializes in playing light classical and popular music....
; the orchestra leads the audience in a sing-along to several songs by the Beatles played by the orchestra but synchronized to the visuals from the game.
E3 reception
The Beatles: Rock Band was well-received at the 2009 E3 Convention, and was named the Best Music/Rhythm Game by GameSpotGameSpot
GameSpot is a video gaming website that provides news, reviews, previews, downloads, and other information. The site was launched in May 1, 1996 by Pete Deemer, Vince Broady and Jon Epstein. It was purchased by ZDNet, a brand which was later purchased by CNET Networks. CBS Interactive, which...
, GameSpy
GameSpy
GameSpy Industries, Inc., known simply as GameSpy, is a division of IGN Entertainment, which operates a network of game websites and provides online video game-related services and software. GameSpy dates back to the 1996 release of an internet Quake server search program named QSpy. The current...
, 1UP.com
1UP.com
1UP.com is a video game website owned by IGN Entertainment, a division of News Corporation. Previously, the site was owned by Ziff Davis before being sold to UGO Entertainment in 2009....
, and X-Play
X-Play
X-Play is a TV program about video games, known for its reviews and comedy skits...
; the game was also nominated for Best Music or Rhythm game by the Game Critics Awards
Game Critics Awards
The Game Critics Awards are a set of annual awards held after the E3 video game conference since 1998. The awards are given to products displayed at E3 with the title Best of E3 of their category. The nominees and winners of the awards are chosen by individual judges representing 35 major North...
and IGN
IGN
IGN is an entertainment website that focuses on video games, films, music and other media. IGN's main website comprises several specialty sites or "channels", each occupying a subdomain and covering a specific area of entertainment...
. The opening animation video, released at the same time as E3, was praised by the press. It has been described as "surreal" by both the Los Angeles Times
Los Angeles Times
The Los Angeles Times is a daily newspaper published in Los Angeles, California, since 1881. It was the second-largest metropolitan newspaper in circulation in the United States in 2008 and the fourth most widely distributed newspaper in the country....
and Boing Boing
Boing Boing
Boing Boing is a publishing entity, first established as a magazine, later becoming a group blog.-History:...
's Offworld blog. Frames Per Second
Fps magazine
fps magazine or frames per second magazine was a magazine specializing in animation, with reviews of animated films and other articles of interest to animation fans....
called it "simply stunning", and the Entertainment Weekly
Entertainment Weekly
Entertainment Weekly is an American magazine, published by the Time division of Time Warner, that covers film, television, music, broadway theatre, books and popular culture...
blog PopWatch described it as "damned spiffy". The second half of the video, where traditional animation
Traditional animation
Traditional animation, is an animation technique where each frame is drawn by hand...
gives way to a combination of computer-aided 2D and 3D scenery has been described as "a mashup of Peter Max
Peter Max
Peter Max is a German-born Jewish American artist. At first, works in this style appeared on posters and were seen on the walls of college dorms all across America. Max then became fascinated with new printing techniques that allowed for four-color reproduction on product merchandise...
and the Unreal Engine
Unreal Engine
The Unreal Engine is a game engine developed by Epic Games, first illustrated in the 1998 first-person shooter game Unreal. Although primarily developed for first-person shooters, it has been successfully used in a variety of other genres, including stealth, MMORPGs and RPGs...
... chaperoned by the ghost of Salvador Dalí
Salvador Dalí
Salvador Domènec Felip Jacint Dalí i Domènech, Marquis de Púbol , commonly known as Salvador Dalí , was a prominent Spanish Catalan surrealist painter born in Figueres,Spain....
" by the ECA
Entertainment Consumers Association
Entertainment Consumers Association is a United States-based non-partisan, non-government, non-profit organization dedicated to the interests of individuals who play computer and video games in the United States and Canada.-History:Mr...
's GameCulture blog. The opening video was awarded the 2009 British Animation Award for "Best Commissioned Animation" and won a Silver Clio Award
Clio Awards
The Clio Awards are annual awards bestowed to reward innovation and creative excellence in advertising, design and communication. The categories include work in nearly all types of media, and the judges are advertising professionals from around the world....
in the field of "Television/Cinema/Digital Technique".
Sales
According to Viacom CEO Philipe Dauman, one quarter of The Beatles: Rock Band inventory was sold during its first week of release, exceeding their expectations. Based on current sales projections, Dauman claimed that the Limited Edition Premium bundle of the game could be sold out by November. Dauman attributed some success of the game's sales to the price reduction of the PlayStation 3, which occurred a few weeks before the release of The Beatles: Rock Band.The Beatles: Rock Band was the fourth high-selling game across all platforms in its first week of release in the United Kingdom. According to the NPD Group
NPD Group
The NPD Group, Inc. is a leading North American market research company. The NPD Group consistently ranks among the top 25 market research companies in the independent Honomichl Top 50 report, which the media and the research industry acknowledge as a credible source of information on the market...
, The Beatles: Rock Band sold 254,000, 208,600, and 134,600 units across all offerings for the Xbox 360, Wii, and PlayStation 3 versions during September 2009, respectively in the United States, making the game the 5th, 10th, and 20th top sellers for the month, respectively; only Guitar Hero 5 for the Xbox 360 placed in the top 10 titles selling 210,800 units. Total sales across all platforms in the United States was 595,000 units with revenue between $59 and , and was the second highest revenue-generating game behind Halo 3: ODST driven by sales of the bundled units. Though MTV Games was pleased with the sales performance of the game, the sales numbers fell short of the projected values by industry analysts, attributing it to the slow recovery of the video game market from the late-2000s recession. As of December 2009, Harmonix has stated that the game has sold more than copies worldwide. NPD Group data through the end of 2009 reported North American sales of the game at 1.18 and . In considering the comparison of The Beatles: Rock Band sales in North America to the nearly units sold by Guitar Hero 5, the magazine Advertising Age
Advertising Age
Advertising Age is a magazine, delivering news, analysis and data on marketing and media. The magazine was started as a broadsheet newspaper in Chicago in 1930...
identified the ability of MTV Games and Harmonix to leverage the music of the Beatles and their other partners in novel and experimental methods among more traditional means. In an October 2010 interview Alex Rigopulos claimed that The Beatles: Rock Band sales were "respectable", having sold "well over three million units", though had not exceeded sales of other Rock Band games.